Whoever heard of poker games like Dean’s Delight or Genetic Revolution? No one, unless you’re a Cornell College professor who plays in the faculty poker group.
It sounds intimidating: a group of Cornell faculty seated around a table, poker chips set, cards dealt, engaged in one of the many games they have invented. For faculty, though, it’s been a relaxing outlet for over 50 years.
Politics professor and former Mount Vernon mayor Nick Berry started the group in 1971. In the early days they played every Wednesday night in players’ homes. Professor Emeritus of Chemistry Truman Jordan resuscitated the group after it had gone dormant for a few years, and now it has moved permanently to his home.
“For my first 10 years at Cornell it was my social life,” says Professor Emeritus of Politics Craig Allin, who joined in 1972. “I don’t know how I did it. I was working 70 hours a week, trying to create new courses, and that poker game would historically start up at 8 o’clock and I’d come home at 1 o’clock in the morning. I remember Robert Mendelson, Lindsley Schutz, and I occasionally staying up the rest of the night playing until it was time for Schutz to take his kids to school in the morning. We were much younger.”
Jordan says there was a time in the 1980s when the chair of every major faculty committee was in the group, and faculty business was a common topic of discussion. Now the talk is centered on the broader world, politics, the markets, and things retired people are interested in, Allin says.
Current Cornell regulars are Jordan, Allin, David Loebsack (politics), Ann Cannon (mathematics and statistics), Craig Tepper (biology), and Craig Engel ’87. Throughout the years “townies”—such as Joe McClain, former food service director and bar proprietor—have been part of the group. Past members include Barron Bremner (administrator), Paul Gray (philosophy), Jim White (philosophy), Charles Connell (German), David Weddle (religion), Robert Mendelsohn (sociology), Winston Ehrmann (academic dean), Dick Watkins (chemistry), Robin Reid (student affairs), Lindsley Schutz (psychology), and, famously, the late Geneva Meers (English), the only woman member for decades.
Jordan said Meers joined after a phone call he received when he owed her a political favor. “Don’t you think it’s time to integrate the faculty poker group?” she asked. Meers died in 2004 and Ann Cannon is the only other woman who has been a regular part of the group.
Allin says they play for fun and chitchat, not money. Bets are limited to a quarter, and the number of raises is limited to three, keeping the pot low.
The stakes seem to be more in the games themselves.
The group’s most prolific game inventor, Allin says, was Charles Connell. He frequently invented games, often politically themed, with names such as Victims of the Revolution.
Craig Allin
“We tend to prefer games that are unreasonably complicated and have lots of opportunities to bet. And many of these games are games of our own devising,” Allin says. “There is a genetic editing game with 15 cards displayed on the table as well as cards in your hand, and depending on certain things happening, certain cards go away and get replaced with other cards. It would make a traditional poker player throw up his hands in dismay and go out of the room running.”
Jordan says that game, Genetic Revolution, was inspired by the genetic engineering capacity of a CRISPR gene.
Numerous games have Cornell-specific names, such as Dean’s Delight and Ehrmann’s Stud, both named for Ehrmann, who was dean of the college from 1969–1975 and provost from 1975–1977.
“Possibly the game we play more often than anything else is a game I invented, which we call Middlemost Ehrmann. Only Truman and I ever met the man or have possibly even thought of why we call it that,” Allin says.
Politics professor and former Mount Vernon mayor Nick Berry started the group in 1971. In the early days they played every Wednesday night in players’ homes. Professor Emeritus of Chemistry Truman Jordan resuscitated the group after it had gone dormant for a few years, and now it has moved permanently to his home.
